No Extraordinary Means
by Carmabaeji - Lively Aria
Summary: What does that mean exactly? Spoilers for Entity


No Extraordinary Means  
  
by Aria  
  
Rating: Same as the show.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own them, if I did then I would be a hell of a lot richer. No one's paying me to write this, so I'm not making any profit from writing it. I'm just a sad little person with nothing to do?  
  
Spoilers: Entity, Emancipation, Robot ep, In the line of duty, Tok'Ra, Ascension,  
  
Synopsis: what exactly does 'no extraordinary means' apply to, anyway?  
  
  
  
-*-*-  
  
I, Jack O'Neill, feel very cynical at the moment. I know that may be a shock to some of you. I realise my typical attitude is one of candor and that I have a tendency to go with the obvious, but...hell with it - you know me, but you have to admit, you're going to notice the stupidity of this situation.  
  
Doc Frasier just 'made me aware of the circumstances surrounding her living will'. Sam specifies no extraordinary means.  
  
'No extraordinary means' this woman does what she does, and she asks for us not to keep her alive by extraordinary means? I am absolutely incredulous - she can't be serious. With in my first year of knowing this woman we'd kept her alive by more extraordinary means than I could count on both hands, and if we go right to an hour ago, we've used so many extraordinary means that even Carter would need a computer programme to count them.  
  
She can't be serious.  
  
Let's start with our first few missions - P3X595. Nope, let's start a bit later, it wouldn't be good to have the doc see me smirking and go a colour akin to beetroot right now. "Happy to see you too, Captain." I could see the trail of clothing in my mind.  
  
Okay, so a little later, right, that mission where she got kidnapped and sold. We traveled nearly forty miles, a mixture of walking and horse back to find that woman, every five seconds having to stop to make sure we found a horse with a broken shoe. When we got there we traded her for a very nice hand gun - and then I put her on my horse and we rode off into the sunset. That's extraordinary I'd say.  
  
What about that mission where that little runt Harlan sent robot versions of us back through the gate? The entire SGC had to be willing to trust that we were who we said we were, and to let us go back to find our real selves. And then the number of tests that Frasier put us through to make sure we weren't good looking. I didn't even know I had that much blood in me! That's a pretty extraordinary act.  
  
When she was taken over by Jolinar. I had to pretend I couldn't see Carter in there, that it was a Goa'uld. Some evil Goa'uld who happened to have Carter's gold hair and cornflower eyes. We had to get her out of there, and in order to do that, we had to accept that she was a good guy - a pretty tough feat when somethings taken over you friend. I have to admit that the assassin stopped us from needing to do that, from needing to let Sam go, possibly forever, all be it in an undesirable way.  
  
Her memories were Tok'Ra, good guys, not Goa'uld, that was a pretty big leap. The little snakes pulled guns on us anyway, but that was their issue, not ours. Carter took us to another planet, got us to put down our guns in an ambush, and got us an alliance with some bloody good allies, you have to admit...  
  
What about that guy Orlin, Owen, something like that. She came to me and asked me to trust her, without telling me what for and I accepted that. I needed to pee, but that was a pretty extraordinary leap, wasn't it.  
  
I counted enough extraordinary leaps, means, whatever. Enough for one hand. And as I poke at my fifth finger, I mentally smile. Those weren't extraordinary. Extraordinary is a relative term. What we do everyday is extraordinary. Normally people would think wow. But if it wasn't standard fare for us to go to the ends of the earth to rescue Carter, then who else is worth it? We'd do it for anyone on earth.  
  
That makes it ordinary.  
  
Carter's right, 'no extraordinary means' so she doesn't want to wake up a vegetable. To know all that she does, and to not be able to help the planet like she does. Sounds fair enough. Even so I can't bring myself to let the doc pull the plug, flick the switch, or whatever it is when you decide to turn somebody off.  
  
"Give her a minute." 


End file.
